Friday, September 20, 2013

Madison elementary art teacher posts students’ anti-Walker cartoons

MADISON — Some kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in Madison public schools are apparently preparing for futures in either political cartooning or time on a psychiatrist’s couch.

Kati Walsh, an elementary art teacher at the Madison Metropolitan School Districtin July posted some of her students’ drawings of Gov. Scott Walker in jail. Walsh suggests her young Rembrandts’ ideas for their sketches popped up out of thin air.

“One student said something to the effect of ‘Scott Walker wants to close all the public schools’… So the rest of the class started drawing their own cartoons and they turned very political. They have very strong feelings about Scott Walker,” the teacher wrote on her blog.

This young student at a Madison, Wis. school drew Gov. Walker behind bars.

This young student at a Madison, Wis. school drew Gov. Scott Walker behind bars.

“The cartoons started getting a little inappropriate so at this point, we stopped drawing and discussed what a political cartoon was,” she wrote.

If the drawings weren’t appropriate, why did the art teacher publish them on her blog? It turns out these weren’t the inappropriate drawings.

“I did not publish the inappropriate cartoons that depicted any harm coming to Walker,” Walsh told Wisconsin Reporter in an email. “I made them throw them away and we talked about how when you disagree with someone, it’s OK to disagree with them respectfully.”

Walsh said she published the drawings because she thought it was “an amazing teaching moment.”